Snow People
by Loki'sRose
Summary: Sixteen-year-old Bobby Drake tries to cope with having a new redhead on the team. (Early X-Men, Alternate Universe)


Disclaimer: The characters are Marvel's, not mine, and are being borrowed without permission, but it's not for profit so please don't sue.

Notes: Extreme expressions of gratitude to Mouse Carcass, Matt Nute and Evenstar for beta-reading, and to the GASPers for assuring me that it didn't suck. You are all the highest possible form of life! :) 

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Snow People

I come inside with a handful of hailstones, cold and solid against my palm. I want to examine them, find out why they exist and how they fall out of the sky. I want to be a scientist, like Hank. I want him to tell me the reasons for things, and watch him set my universe in order.

But Hank is busy.

Like always, these days. It's all 'Jean this' and 'Jean that' and 'Wow, red hair!' I mean, come on! It's not like that's even a mutant colour! I tried to put some green dye in her shampoo, but the Professor spotted it. Told me to dispose of it. So I said OK. Brown's a boring hair colour anyway. So he said 'Scott, dispose of it'. And Scott looked solemn and threw away my hair dye. I was pissed off. That stuff cost a fortune.

The air's warmer inside the mansion. I have to concentrate to keep my hailstones from melting.

I can hear them all out in the lounge room, being busy. Sounds like all-out war. Probably TV.

I throw on an old sweater, one of the huge woollen ones that Hank grew out of and gave to me, and de-ice. The wool is old, soft against my bare skin, too worn out to be scratchy. That's the great thing about getting second-hand clothes from Hank. They're well broken in. And big. The sweater hangs loosely off my shoulders and reaches just past my knees, almost like a dress. And it soaks up most of the water left from my snow-form. I dry my feet on the doormat, then head out towards the war-zone. I figure I can pry Hank away from a scuffle for the remote control. Or I can join in, force them all to watch Bugs Bunny till their heads explode. Or the TV explodes – anyway, at least I'll get their attention.

Unfortunately, my cunning plan dies only seconds after I've thought of it. Jean Grey doesn't generally watch arguments about the TV through a tiny crack in the lounge room doorway. Jean Grey maintains she has better things to do than channel-surf. Which suggests the fight in there is something else entirely. Of course, I could just ignore the whole thing. But curiosity is much more fun, and besides, the only way to end my curiosity is to pester Jean. So, a win-win situation.

"Je-ean!" I call loudly, "What are you doing?"

She jumps a foot in the air, and just for a moment, she looks almost guilty. Whatever is happening, she obviously isn't supposed to be watching. Very interesting. I put on an innocent expression as she regains her composure and glares at me.

"Bobby!" she hisses, "Try and be a little quiet! And don't sneak up on me like that!"

"Be quiet, but don't sneak up?" I parrot. She gives me that superior 'you're such a child, Bobby' look, then turns her back on me and returns to peeking around the door. A flash of red lights her up through the crack, turning her hair an odd colour for a moment. Something thumps heavily inside the room. It sounds interesting, but I still have to get past Jean.

"I just wanted to know what you were doing, Jean," I whine as annoyingly as possible. "I didn't mean to be a nuisance."

Jean sighs. "All right. Come here, Bobby."

She must be in an exceptionally good mood, because she smiles at me as she positions me in front of the doorway. "Look," she whispers.

Hank is trying to wrestle Warren out of the air, while hiding behind the couch from Scott's optic blasts. The TV isn't even on.

"I don't get it," I tell Jean.

She giggles. Never before have I heard Jean giggle. "They're fighting over me!" she says. "Isn't that so sweet?"

My mouth drops open. "Um. No."

She pats my shoulder. "Never mind. You'll understand when you're older."

"I'm sixteen!"

"Yes, well, you know what they say about late bloomers – "

"Who are you calling a late… Jean, what _do_ they say about late bloomers? Jean?"

"Shhh! Warren just ripped Scott's _shirt_!"

"Oh _yuck_. I didn't come in here to listen to you be gross. Oww!"

Something hits the wall I'm leaning against. The whole thing shakes as if it's made of cardboard, knocking me off balance. The hall table shivers and the Professor's expensive vase goes tumbling to the ground.

"Jean!" I cry in horror.

She glances up briefly, catches the vase with a quick effortless flare of telekinetic power, and returns to ogling the others. The contents of the vase hit the floor, spraying water and yellow tulips across the hallway, not to mention my feet. I bend to retrieve the flowers that Jean apparently doesn't think are worth her time. I put them carefully back in the vase with one hand, trying not to drop my hailstones while I do it. So my back is to the Professor when he arrives. The first I know of his entrance is a startlingly loud "Bobby! What are you doing?"

I spin round. He's staring pointedly at my feet.

He thinks I've had an accident with my mutant power.

"Professor, it's not what it looks like."

"Put some proper clothes on, Bobby, then clean this mess up. Obviously you need to do more work in the Danger Room on your control."

"That's not my ice!" I protest, pulling at the sweater to make it look a little neater. "The vase got knocked over–"

"You knocked over my vase?"

"Nono, it wasn't me! It was the others–"

"Bobby, no-one was in the hall but you."

"Jean is– " I look around, and discover that Jean isn't. She chooses that moment to come back out of the lounge room, Hank, Scott and Warren following meekly behind her.

"Really, Bobby," she scolds, "blaming people when they aren't even in the room."

The Professor nods. Jean is at his side so fast I think her mutant power must have changed to teleportation. "Scott, please find Bobby a mop."

"This is so unfair! I didn't DO anything!"

"Don't make such a fuss. Just clean it up and we'll say no more about it."

"No!"

That catches the Professor's attention. He wheels himself back to face me, nearly running over Jean's foot as he does. I almost laugh. But not quite.

"Perhaps it was a mistake to allow you active status on the team at such a tender age," says the Professor. He beckons to Jean, who commandeers the wheelchair and begins straightening the blanket for him. "Consider yourself confined to the mansion and grounds."

Sudden, childish tears well in my eyes. I love going out on the missions. I'm part of the team, I get to protect people and save lives. I get to use my ice powers, and act like a secret agent and stuff. The Professor couldn't take me off the team! My life would be over!

"But I didn't do anything, Professor!" I plead. "Just read my mind and you'll–"

He cuts me off again, his voice sharp. "That would be an unethical use of my mutant powers."

"I'm giving you permission!" It can't be unethical if I give permission! But apparently the Professor thinks otherwise.

"NO, Bobby," he says as Jean wheels him off down the hall. "Now go and get dressed. No student of this school should be wandering the house in just a sweater."

I watch them go, and realise that this is the last straw. It's not fair! It's an effort not to bring the temperature down to cool my anger. I want to scream but my voice is missing in action. So not fair.

"We're mutants!" I try to say. "Since when did appearance matter? We get a redhead on the team, so I'm not allowed to wear what I like any more? What, do you want me to be more like Jean? Poised, perfect, feminine Jean Grey, all curves and bouncing red curls? I'll go dye my hair, shall I? Go find a miniskirt? Things were a lot better before we had Jean! You guys used to like having me around, now you don't even notice me. Well, fine! I just won't be here to notice. Goodbye!" 

My hailstones skitter and bounce as they slip through my fingers onto the hall floor. They melt as soon as I turn my back. I run out of the too-warm, too perfect mansion, letting the cold build up around me. 

"Goodbye."

"Jean, did Bobby say something?"

"Not that I noticed, Professor."

"Perhaps you should go and have a quiet word with her. It's not like her to get upset like that. Maybe she's ill."

It's cold outside. I make sure it's cold. I coat myself in crisp snow, wrap it around me like a cocoon. Hank's old sweater is at the bottom of the lake, the stretched wool glittering with little crystals of chill. 

Normal children build snowmen in this weather. I build snow-women. I build a snow-Jean, so out of proportion that I can barely keep her standing. I build a snow-Bobby, but I knock her down straight away. She was a waste of snow. 

There is nowhere to run away to, here in Westchester. I'm a long way from home, and a long way from buses and trains, and besides, people might give me funny looks if I tried to hitchhike. 'Mommy, there's a snowman with his thumb out!' Why are they always called snow_men_? There's nothing intrinsically masculine about them. 'Intrinsically' is Hank's word. He has good words. 

I curl up on a fallen log by the lake and watch the snow-Jean melt away. It serves her right for ruining my life. Before Jean, the Professor wouldn't have thought twice about reading our minds. We were his students, so it was all right. But now there's all ethics and protocol and stuff. Now there's Jean Grey, and trying to watch her getting changed without anyone else noticing. I bet she does notice. I think she just doesn't tell anyone. The guys were fighting over her, she said, and she was enjoying every minute of it. Maybe she'll get hurt in the next mission. She'll go into a coma, and the team will be devastated and they'll all come running to me – 'Oh, Bobby, Jean's dead, now you must lead us to victory!' We'll avenge her stupid red hair and the life can go back to normal.

It's cold and wet, and I can't be crying because I'm too angry to cry. It must just be rain. I wish they'd come out to talk to me. Even if they just yell because I'm so stupid and childish. I'd catch my death out here, if I wasn't a mutant. My mom would have a fit. 'You let her sit out in the snow for hours? You monsters!' My mom wouldn't call them monsters, because then I'd be a monster, and I'm their little girl. I'm getting homesick, and the rest of the team's ignoring me. 'Silly, childish Bobby, she'll come inside when she gets hungry'. I probably will. I wonder what would happen if I sat here all night. Maybe I'd melt away. That'd make them sorry. 

Jean comes outside, all rugged up like an Eskimo. I don't want to talk to Jean. I freeze the lake over, but she's levitating herself, stupid telekinesis. I don't want to talk to Jean. I start building snowpeople again. I'm busy, Jean Grey, go bother somebody else.

"Bobby, is something wrong? Because if there is, I want to help. Us girls, we have to stick together. Right?"

One snow-woman begins to take on Jean-features again. Exaggerated, just like a cartoon. Jean doesn't take the hint. 

"Maybe we should go shopping together sometime, how about that? You could show me around some of the good shops in Westchester."

Jean's idea of a good shop is the one with lots of green miniskirts. Chances that she'd take me to the video arcade? Nil. My snow-Jean is finished, I move on to work on snow-Warren. I make his wings all icy, so they don't fall down. They look like glass. I go back and give Jean an ice-glass bust. She's watching my artwork, now. Maybe I should ask her if I've got the likeness right? Maybe she'd volunteer to model. 

"That's very clever, Bobby. I didn't know you could make the snow all hard like that. Normally it's all fluffy. Speaking of which, I brought you a towel and a dressing gown, so you could stop using your powers for a while. It's not good to use them continuously, you know. The Professor would be very upset if you strained yourself."

The Professor wouldn't care. You wouldn't care. 

"It's all about the temperature," I say. Jean is pleased that I'm speaking to her again. She probably can't wait to sort this out and go back inside out of the cold. I put the finishing touches on Warren, and start making a Scott. I decide to make him all icy, because Scott isn't fluffy at all. Cold flows from my fingertips, shaping itself like magic into a Scott-statue, all sharp edges. I wonder if the Professor knows how good I'm getting at controlling my powers. He always gets me to make simple things, because I'm the youngest. 

"That's Scott, isn't it?" says Jean, quick on the uptake. I've been working on his visor for ages. "That makes this one Warren, right?" The wings weren't a dead giveaway? "So who's this one? You?" 

The fluffy snow has caved in slightly under the weight of the extra-large chest. I kick down the snow-Jean and start again, just with the ice this time. It's easier to shape and to control. All I had to do was speed up the time it took to get cold. There's nothing childish about this ice, like glass. I carve Jean quickly. With a little effort, you can even see the curl of her hair. I should have been an artist. This new Jean has Barbie-doll proportions, and I can see that the model has realised who it's supposed to be. And she's not happy about it. 

"Really, Bobby, act your age! What if one of the boys came out and saw this?" she blushes. 

I snort, and go back to working on Scott. I make him bulge in a highly inappropriate manner, and Jean goes into convulsions and begins to turn purple. I ignore her. As soon as she gets her breath back, she knocks over my statues with a telekinetic blow; they go down like skittles, shattering across the frosted grass. 

And they'd been looking so cool, too. I run back to the mansion. Jean stands by the lake, maybe she's admiring herself in the ice mirror fragments. Maybe she'll get seven years bad luck. 

I don't see anyone inside the mansion. They're all somewhere else, busy again. I go down to the basement. Not the Danger Room basement, one of the unfinished ones, full of junk that the Professor doesn't want cluttering up the rest of the mansion. Stuff he doesn't want to throw away in case it turns out to be useful one day. This is a good place for me to be. No one'll come looking for ages. Maybe never. 

I stay iced-up anyway. Just in case. Can't have them sneaking in while I'm naked. So I'm safe in my snowy wrapping, shapeless and out of sight. My mutant power is hell on clothes. I ice the lock on the basement door, and fill in all the cracks. No peeking, Jean Grey. I want to be alone. 

There's nothing to do down here. I listen for sounds from above. I wait for them to come looking for me, calling my name. 'Oh Bobby, the Brotherhood's attacking, it's all up to you!' 'Bobby, do you need a hand with your homework?' 'Bobby, did you put that plastic spider in the fridge?' It's far too quiet down here. 

I wander round the room, looking at the forgotten junk trapped down here. Rocking chair. Ancient desk. That couch that caved in the first time Hank sat on it. Dressing room mirror. Boring stuff. 

I start practising my statues again. Make myself some new friends. If they're ice, they can't run out on me at the first sign of red hair. Jean didn't know I could do hard ice as well as snow. I'll practise that, surprise the Professor. That'll show him. Take _me_ off the team, will he? I fill the room with ice statues, cold, transparent people. Jean again, and Scott and Warren. Then Hank, he's a lot bigger than the others. Wish he'd come down and say hi. I'm a lousy hermit. I… make myself. In ice. It looks strange. Hard to make my baggy second-hand clothes, or even my snow-form out of ice-glass. It's not a very good likeness. No detail. I chisel away the excess ice. I make Bobby the not-an-X-Man. Very slowly, like a glacier moving, a thought occurs to me. 

I go back over to the dressing room mirror, stare at my shapeless snowman self. And I de-ice. I look at myself in the mirror, skinny and damp with limp brown hair. I concentrate very hard and drop the temperature around my body as sharply as I can. Instead of the usual buildup of fluffy snow against my skin, a thin layer of glassy ice forms. I look streamlined. It's easier to move in this ice-form. I'm not as bulky. Or as shapeless. In the mirror, Ice Statue Bobby stares back at me. She's no Jean Grey, but she isn't exactly a snowman, either. She smiles at me. 

I sneak out of the junk basement and head for the Danger Room, to test out my new sharp-edged mutant body. The Danger Room's empty. Good. I have the whole place to myself. I shouldn't be in here unsupervised, but who'd want to supervise me? I'm fine on my own. Iceslides form at my fingertips, long thin fingers, not the glove-like hand I usually wield. This form is easier to maintain, it doesn't keep trying to melt and have to be renewed. I leave less water behind me. 

I have the Danger Room to myself. What shall I do? I build icy goalposts and a football. I never used to like football, but Hank makes it sound like lots of fun. I speed across the field, ball under one arm, other hand maintaining the iceslide and sprouting opposition players to be dodged before the ice gives way and they tackle me. "Bobby Drake, from Long Island. Look at that girl go! And it's Drake all the way, dodges a tackle there, nice work. Spin fake! That'll confuse the other team. Now straight on to the goal line. Touchdown – beautiful work there by Drake. And the crowd goes wild!"

The second goal will be more of a challenge. The Danger Room is littered with ice opponents, some still on their feet, and the tangle formed by my slowly melting iceslides. I dance around and under the obstacles, circling and looping-the-loop on my current slide, back towards the opposite goal. "And it's Drake again!" I commentate enthusiastically, "at the thirty yard line, roaring up the field. The twenty! She's unstoppable! Avoids another tackle. Can you believe the X-team gave this player up? Drake's nearly at the ten– "

Something warm bumps past me, fast and strong, and somehow I'm not holding my snow football anymore. Confused, I slide to a halt. 

A war cry goes up behind me, "She fumbles! McCoy, the all-star gets the turnover! What a play!"

Hank is here. 

I grin and take off after him. Sliding, I can almost go as fast as Warren can fly. Hank waves the ball at me then throws it from hand to hand, juggling it. 

"I should have brought some gloves," he calls, "my digits are getting frost-bitten."

"Then give the ball here!" I shout. He chuckles and shakes his head. 

"I'm afraid not, my glacial companion. Henry McCoy NEVER loses a football game."

"Oh yeah?" 

"Yeah!"

Hank ducks and dodges, but I follow. He knocks down ice sculptures that get in his way. I build more. Hank was right. Football is a lot of fun. 

Hank hurls the ball at the goals at last, and I'm not quite quick enough to block it. The snowball splatters against the Danger Room wall, and Hank roars with triumph. 

"Seven all! Tiebreaker time!" I call, bringing my iceslide back down to ground level. 

"You'd better call it a draw and come and warm up."

The Professor's voice echoes through the room and topples the last standing ice-footballer.

"Yeah, if poor Hank stays out in the cold much longer he'll start turning blue." Warren adds. But his eyes are on me, not Hank. 

They're all standing in the Danger Room doorway, watching us. Warren looks stunned. Jean looks amused. Scott looks stern, but since that's his default expression, it doesn't mean much. The Professor's face is impossible to read. 

Hank and I head over to them. Jean hands Hank a towel, but I stay iced up. They're watching me like they've never seen me before. Silence. Silence. Getting worried. Silence. If I'm in trouble, I wish they'd just hurry up and yell. I wonder if they'll kick me out of the school. Not supposed to go in the Danger Room unsupervised. Apparently it's dangerous. Hank is watching me. 

The Professor smiles. "Excellent training session, Icewoman. I'm impressed that you've improved so much. If you keep up the maturity you've just proved you possess, I won't have to follow through with my earlier threat."

"Threat," I repeat. He hadn't really intended to take me off the team? That's the best news I've had all day. Except… "Icewoman?"

"Unless you can suggest some other codename for yourself?" The Professor does that eyebrow thing he does. Wish I could do that. 

"Icewoman's fine," I manage. Even Jean only gets to be Marvel _Girl_. She smiles at me from behind Scott's shoulder. She seems to be holding his hand. Maybe she's not so bad after all. 

Hank pats my shoulder. "So, oh icylicious one, want to come down to the video arcade with me? We can procure some sugary goodness along the way?"

"You bet! Just lemme get changed first!"

And Hank smiles. At me. Guess he's not busy any more. 


End file.
